Year 6

Welcome to Year Six!

So, here we are, ready for the adventure to begin in year six! Year six is always such an important year; it is a time of transition where you have the opportunity to reflect on all the amazing memories which you have created during your time at Burghfield St. Mary’s, as well as looking forward to the next phase in your life. It is also a year of opportunities: key roles and responsibilities, outdoor adventurous visits and the school play, where you can give the best of yourselves and become fabulous role models. You are the ‘top of the school’ and others will look up to you to lead the way.

No-one underestimates the challenges we will face too. Remember, it is important to communicate with us and say how you feel as we create our new normal in year six. Talk to us, use the post it note system and always share your joys and your worries. We are here for you. Anything that you are unsure about – please ask. We are always here to listen.

So, onto the ‘work.’ Here are some ideas for tasks that you should be doing at home to help support your learning in year six. The more you begin consolidating your learning in the Autumn term, the less concerns you will have as we move towards assessments and SATs at the end of the year. We can take it steady and learn together.

Reading – The more you read, the more ideas you have for your writing. Look to attempt a range of authors and learn from their styles and choices. Reading helps to learn new vocabulary and inspires ideas. Please use your reading diary to record all the books and different material which you are reading at home. (We will check them every day.) We ask that you read at least 3 times a week, make comments and ask your parents to sign to show when they are reading with you too.

Comprehension – You also need to complete a weekly comprehension, focussing on different types of questions. We will discuss the answers in class each week (on a Monday) and try to find patterns in the way we answer the questions, in preparation for the style of questions which will come our way in SATs. (Timetable in the comprehension book and on our class web page each week in preview learning.)

Maths – Use your Maths White Rose booklets to consolidate the work we are doing in class, or get a head start on the next week. Any additional practise will help reinforce your learning and give you the confidence to consolidate your skills. (Check for preview learning each week on our class web page.)

Grammar – Use SPAG.com to consolidate the grammar vocabulary we are learning each week and to familiarise yourself with the type of questions in the SATs. (Timetable attached and on web page.)

Spelling – You will be learning key spellings in school each week. Information about these will be on our preview learning page. Additionally, keep revising and learning both your year 3/4 spelling list and your year 5/6 spelling list, these are important to remember. (You can find them on our school website.) Three or four key words to learn will be set each week and tested each half term.

PE – Just a reminder, PE remains on a Wednesday and Friday.

Fun – Please give yourself a short, dedicated time for school work each night (as it is good training for secondary school) then allow additional time to relax and have fun! This is your last year at primary school and we want you to be happy and secure. Remember, anything you are unsure about, just tell us and we can help you.

We are a team – team year six! Let’s do this!!! Mrs Field, Mrs Riggs and Mrs Parry.

Year 6 Preview Learning: Week commencing 13 September 2021

Year 6 Preview Learning: 13^th September 2021

English

This week in English, we will be continuing our work on character descriptions. One of the effective strategies for characterisation is ‘show not tell.’ We will explore how information about a character can be given or inferred through their behaviours or actions, their movements and their appearance. We will be planning and writing our descriptions, making some surprising or unusual moments which really make the reader think about the personality of this character. Our focus character will be Gollum from ‘Lord of the Rings.’

Spelling

Our year 5 / 6 words to practise this week are: accommodate, accompany, according, achieve.

This week, we will be continuing our work on revising the statutory spelling lists for years 3 / 4. We will be highlighting any tricky words and thinking about strategies to learn them, such as splitting up into letter strings or creating mnemonics. A mnemonic is a tool that helps you to memorise something specific, like how to spell a word. For example, the following is a mnemonic for the word ‘necessary’ – ‘one collar and two sleeves’. This mnemonic could help you remember that the word ‘necessary’ has one ‘c’ and two ‘s’s’, which enables you to remember the tricky parts of this spelling. Mnemonics can also be used to remember tricky homophone spellings. For example, ‘their’ is a possessive word – it has the word ‘heir’ in it – which is someone who may inherit lots of possessions.

The complete lists are in your spelling folders, on the class webpage and on the links below.

SpellingWordList_Y3-4.pdf (oxfordowl.co.uk)

SpellingWordList_Y5-6.pdf (oxfordowl.co.uk)

Grammar

In grammar, we will be revising main and subordinate clauses and conjunctions. A main clause is a clause that contains a subject and an object. Main clauses make sense on their own. E.g. The cat sat down. Sometimes a sentence is made up of two clauses: a main clause and a subordinate clause, which relies on the main clause. A subordinate clause contains a subject and a verb, but it needs to be attached to a main clause because it cannot make sense on its own. For example:

This is a complex sentence (also referred to as a multi-clause sentence). It has a main clause (‘I first saw her in Paris’) and a subordinate clause (‘ where I lived as a small child’), which relies on the main clause to make sense. The two clauses are joined by the conjunction ‘where’. You can watch the following videos for more information: https://youtu.be/pWS3Cbf5h9U or https://youtu.be/ErwKUGfBzhg

Please complete the ‘Subordinate clauses and conjunctions A’ task on SPAG.com. Your logins will be in your reading diary.

Reading and Comprehension

Please ensure you are reading with your parents regularly, with at least three comments with parent signatures in your reading diary.

The comprehension text for the week will be: ‘Dare to Dance.’ Please complete the inference questions on pages 8 -9 in your non-fiction workbook, we will then discuss the possible answers in class next Monday.

Maths

In maths, we will be learning to: round any whole number to a required degree of accuracy and using negative numbers in context, calculating intervals across zero. Please complete your White Rose Maths Block 1 – Place Value home learning booklet– Questions 4 to 11. (You have a paper copy and the link is below.)

https://wrm-13b48.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Y6-HL-Autumn-Block-1-Place-value-2020.pdf

There are also videos, tutorials and quizzes to support your learning on BBC Bitesize on the following links:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zh8dmp3/articles/zpx2qty

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/znwj6sg/articles/zxthnbk

Many thanks for your continued support, Mrs Field, Mrs Riggs and Mrs Parry.

Click here to see what we did in previous weeks